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Sirius Black

Okay, I have a few questions on Sirius...it seems that a lot of people say that Sirius was pretty much a player when he was in Hogwarts, but how do we know that for certain?

Also, I'm writing a James/Lily fic and I was going to do the pretty much traditional Sirius-is-a-player thing, but I think it's a little too clithe, so does anybody have any recommendations for how I could possibley describe Sirius' personality?

Well, we know that there are way too much clichéd descriptions about Sirius's personality. Some of them have canon-based background, so it's left to the writer's abilty to pull it off maserfully. But some of them, especially Sirius being portrayed as such a ladies-man, are not among these canon-based ones.

You see, Rowling had said in an interview (paraphrasing) that Sirius had other things to care about than girls. We also know from "Snape's Worst Memory" that Sirius takes no notice of the girl who dreamily looks at him in the O.W.Ls.

However, it doesn't mean that you can't make Sirius be more interested in girls - I think that the important thing would be to set the balance. We know that Sirius likes pranking and being a troublesome but brillantly talented student more than he likes girls; so as long as you don't neglect these, you can very well make Sirius interact with girls to the extent you want

On another note on his personality, I think that Sirius is one of the most complex characters in the HP-verse. Because there are two Sirius's we know: the first is Sirius who escaped from Azkaban, tried to murder Peter, was trapped at his childhood house for a year and died in the DoM. The other Sirius, and this is the one you should be concerned with, is the young Sirius at Hogwarts. We only have a glimpse of him in "Snape's Worst Memory". The difficulty here is that you have to build up a well-round personality for him which won't clash, and will conform with the Sirius we know more of. Surely all the terrible events he lived through must've changed him; but I'm also sure that we still see glimpses of young Sirius in him. And it's up to you to dig in the reckless, restless, bitter Sirius Black and bring out of him a young and believable Sirius.

To be a bit more specific; here are some things for you to decide on young Sirius: How is his attitude towards the classes? Is he a good student, does he just pass with ease because he's brillant, or what? What do you think led him to run away from Grimmauld Place? What about his relationship with his cousins, with Slytherins, or with Snape in particular? According to his attitude towards girls, what does he think and how does he behave in the whole James/Lily affair? How does he behave around his friends - for example, Peter?

Personally, I am of the opinion that, while there isn’t really evidence proving that Sirius was a player, there are hints that he definitely could have been (at least something of one). All the evidence suggests (to me, anyway) that it is highly probable that Sirius did quite well with the ladies. *points at Avatar* Here are my reasons for thinking this:

He is described, more than once, as having been very good-looking. He was also clearly popular. Remus states that everyone thought he (Sirius) and James were the “height of cool”.

JKR has also said this about him on her website:

I shook hands with a woman who leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, ‘Sirius Black is sexy, right?’ And yes, of course she was right, as the Immeritus Club know. The best looking, most rebellious, most dangerous of the four marauders…

This canon information would lead me to believe that there would be loads of girls vying for his attentions. *fans self just thinking of him* I think having Harry notice the girl ‘eyeing him hopefully’ during O.W.L.s definitely suggested this.

Now, from my real life observations, I’d have to conclude that there are very few young men in Sirius’ position who would not enjoy these circumstances. He was a teenaged boy, and there is a good chance his hormones were at least partially raging. I can see him definitely taking advantage of his advantages. With his obvious arrogance thrown in, he seems very like the typical BMOC (big man on campus) personality that I’m sure we’ve all known at some point. While there are always exceptions, it has been my experience that these boys generally seemed to be either in a relationship, typically with one of the popular girls, or they dated around—a lot, but they didn’t have to work at it. There were always girls wanting to date them.

I think that was Sirius. I think he was very nonchalant about girls because he could be. Whereas James was desperate to date a girl who seemingly wanted nothing to do with him, thus his antics for Lily in SWM, Sirius was probably so used to girls coming on to him, it was no big deal. (It was James showing off, not Sirius. Sirius was just staring around looking haughty and bored, but handsomely so. ),

I would also like to comment on the girl eyeing him hopefully and him not noticing it. This really doesn’t suggest to me that Sirius was uninterested in girls. She was sitting behind him. Why would he notice? DH SPOILER: He was obviously interested in girls enough to have posters of them on his walls at home and I don’t think he did it just to irritate his parents. I think he permanently attached them to irritate his parents, but he probably discovered they didn’t like it after having them up and his mum going nuts. End DH SPOILER.

Personally, I’m inclined to rule out the idea that Sirius became a romantic soul with a long time steady girlfriend simply based on the other things we see of his personality, unless he really changed a lot after O.W.L.s. He is so restless and self absorbed. (Believe it or not, I love him, so no rotten fruit please.) I don’t mean to suggest that he was incapable of respecting and having feelings (other than lust) for a girl, but I don’t think he was fully capable of, or that he would have even wanted to have the kind of commitment a lasting relationship would entail, at that point in his life. I don’t think Sirius changed nearly as much as James did. I get this impression from the way he discusses the prank he played on Snape when Remus talks of it in the Shrieking shack all those years later. Sirius doesn’t seem to feel any remorse over his actions at all. He still seems reckless and a bit self absorbed. *shrugs* JKR said, he never really had the chance to grow up.

Now, all that being said, I don’t think Sirius was pulling a different girl every weekend. I agree with Kehribar that he was a complex person and one should definitely NOT show him thinking of nothing but girls. I think he did have many other things on his mind (in addition to hormone induced interest in girls, not instead of it. ) But I can’t imagine he didn’t have a fair few flings, considering how totally hot/fit he obviously was! LOL

Anyway, those are some of my personal opinions on Sirius. Oh, I also don’t see him as the goofy class clown who is always cutting up that sometimes shows up in fics. I do think Sirius would have joked, but his humor would have been much cooler and/or darker than silly, imo. He was the height of cool!

*loves Sirius, even if he was an arrogant berk with a rather nasty streak, at times*

Okay, I have a few questions on Sirius...it seems that a lot of people say that Sirius was pretty much a player when he was in Hogwarts, but how do we know that for certain?

Mainly from the fifth book, we can tell that he thinks alot of himself, and usually those men are attractive to women. Also, we know that women find him attractive because of the girl looking at him in his OWLs.

Also in the seventh book, there was alot of posters of women in his room. It doesn't confirm that he was player, but it does say that he was slightly lustful.

Though I do agree, it is not definately canon that he was a player.

Because there are two Sirius's we know: the first is Sirius who escaped from Azkaban, tried to murder Peter, was trapped at his childhood house for a year and died in the DoM. The other Sirius, and this is the one you should be concerned with, is the young Sirius at Hogwarts. We only have a glimpse of him in "Snape's Worst Memory".

This is true. But all that you said about the events changing him, I'm not too sure of. He was always filled with a dark surrounding, living with potentional Death Eaters. I think he learnt that everything is dark and light. So he could be Sirius (if you get me) and playful. Even after Azkaban, he could be rather cheerful. I think that those two people are one.

It's what he said about how nobody's definately good or evil. Like Harry, when angered enough, he used the Cruatius (sp?) on Bellatrix. He tried to kill Peter because he managed to basically sentence Lilly and James. He loved his friend alot. However, under normal circumstances, I don't beleive he'd try to kill. I think it's just a dark side which has been forced out of it. Everyone has one. Dumbledor even for a while about all this 'greater good.'

I agree with every other point on this thread, so I do not think I need to elaborate.

Along with Sirius being a player in many fanfictions, a lot of people seem to forget to make him grow up. After he escapes from Azkaban, he isn't seventeen. Seventeen-year-old Sirius might have been totally carefree and often bored (I don't know, we don't see a lot of this Sirius in the books), but older Sirius most definately has a darker streak.

As much as he'll forget that Harry isn't James, he is still pretty much sane by fourth year. He still worries about Harry getting into trouble and he'll go as far as he can to protect people he loves. I mean, look at Peter. Siriuis didn't have to hunt him down, but he did. He felt horrible that he would ever think Remus was the traitor, and I think he still harbours some gilt from that. And after he hunted down the rat, (sorry, I had to) he managed to e put in jail. But he's not bitter because he thinks he's avenged his friends. Well, maybe he's a little bitter, but he was locked up without a trial for hunting down a Death Eater. Who wouldn't be?

What I'm tryong to say is he isn't innocent, and he isn't comic relief. He has a character that was carefully developed by Jo. He spent thirteen years in Azkaban, and those years were obviously hard ones. That was at least a third of his life (I haven't done the math, sorry.) and it shows. When we look at just-escaped Sirius (third year), he's completely delusional. He remains independent and has a total lack of respect for anyone, but he grew up enough that there should be a difference in his character. Just remember that even though he went through the veil smiling doesn't mean he was always happy. They're called Dementors for a reason, and they left their mark. /rant

Other than that, I totally agree with what everyone is saying here. Keep up the good work.

Sorry for the bad spelling and change of tenses. Maybe I'll go back and edit it some day.

Thank you all for your thoughts on this, it has really helped me. I am now in the process of re-writing how I portrayed Sirius in my fanfic. Thank you all again. But if any of you want to put down your thoughts on this matter, still feel free. I can still use all the help I can get. .

There are two cliches in fanfics that I see a lot. They are [1] Girl-crazy Sirius and [2] Formerly Girl-crazy Sirius, who is now in love with only one girl. I don't like either of these too much, not only because they appear so often, but because I honestly don't think Sirius would spend too much energy on girls.

My opinion of Sirius is that he is much more Marauder-involved during Hogwarts. In the Pensieve, we see that he has girls giggling over him, and he's showing them a bit off attention, but after a minute he gets bored and turns to James, deciding to go after Snape.

All through Hogwarts, it is probably just the four of them, similar to the Harry, Ron, and Hermoine trio. They have a special bond because of Remus' secret and because they become animagus together. They pull pranks and make trouble, and Sirius finds this much more exciting than having girls giggling over him every weekend.

Of course, I'm not saying that he's cut himself off from girls, by any means. I'm guessing he goes on dates, messes around with girls, and the like. Basically, he's a ladies man, when it's convenient for him. But the Marauders always come first.

I don't know if that had been discussed somewhere else, but this seemed to be a good place to ask. Does anyone know what Sirius' Patronus was/ have any thoughts on what it would have been?

I don't remember anything in canon, so here goes. I had to think about this, but I thought, maybe it's a Gryffindor lion. I usually think it's cliche when someone has their house symbol as their patronus, but in Sirius' case, it would fit. He comes out of his parents' house, where he was always the black sheep in the family (no pun intended). The Gryffindor house is the first place where he feels safe, like he really belongs, and because the patronus is your protector, I think it would be appropriate for Sirius.
I hope I helped!

A lion was actually what I was thinking of, as well. When I first began to think about it, I thought dog, but then my mind yelled, 'CLICHE!', so I nixed it. Then I began to think of Sirius' actual life.

When was a sixth year (before the time he would have learned to do a Patronus), he ran away from his home, and far before that he was shunned by his family for becoming part of Gryffindor. He obviously is not like a Slytherin, cunning, decieving, etc.

Personally, apart from Sirius' grandiose and haughty appearance and attitude, I think that he has a lot of inside torment due to his genealogy. When he was sorted into Gryffindor, it was obviously his real personailty that was resposible for this, so he was relieved, in a way. Therefore, the Lion of Gryffindor saved him!